Sharon olds biography timeline infographic

American poet

Sharon Olds (born November 19, 1942) is an American poet. Olds won the first San Francisco Poetry Center Award in 1980,^[1] the 1984 National Book Critics Circle Award,^[2] and the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.^[3] She teaches creative writing at New York University and is a previous director of the Creative Writing Program at NYU.^[4]

Early life

Sharon Olds was born on November 19, 1942, in San Francisco, California, but was brought up in Berkeley, California, along with her siblings.^[5] She was raised as a "hellfire Calvinist," as she describes it.^[6] Her father, like his before him, was an alcoholic who was often abusive to his children.

In Olds' writing she often refers to the time (or possibly even times) when her father tied her to a chair.^[7] Olds' mother was often either unable or too afraid to come to the aid of her children.

The strict religious environment in which Ol